A Safe Haven
by happilyinsane13
Summary: It's April Fool's Day, and George no longer wants to pretend he's okay. His muggle waitress however, tells him straight better than even Molly Weasley could.


George couldn't stand the noise anymore. It was unwelcoming and unkind. The laughter, the jokes, the air reeked of trickery and nonsense. All the things he used to stand for on April Fools Day. His birthday.

Fred's birthday too.

"Get out," he said it softly at first, and then his voice roared to life as he screamed for the whole shop to hear, "Get out! We're closing early!"

The madness, for one brief second, stopped. People stared at him, holding love potions, skiving snack boxes, and bags of Peruvian powder in their hands. Their eyes were questioning, accusatory.

There was no "We" anymore.

"Well, didn't you hear me?" George yelled, raising his wand threateningly. "Or do you have all the brains of a blast-ended skrewt? OUT!"

People began to file out, muttering under their breaths, probably sneaking a few products under their robes as he went. George didn't give a damn. It isn't as though he and Fred hadn't charmed them to backfire on them if they hadn't been paid for.

George no longer wanted to dwell on Fred. When he woke up this morning, he thought he could do it. He thought he could open up the shop with a smile on his face this morning on his first birthday without his twin. He had believed he had plenty of time to grieve. He had forgotten a twin was different. It had slipped his mind that he could feel the absence of his presence like a glaring hole in his already mutilated heart.

And yet here George stood on this rainy April day, it was nearing lunch time, and it was a good thing he wasn't due at the Burrow until dinner. He needed the space to prepare himself, and he figured his family did too. Especially his parents.

What shape would his mother be in as she prepared the birthday cake, even though he had insisted he hadn't needed one? Would she be crying, that instead of making a half-vanilla, half-strawberry cake (Fred had preferred strawberry) it would only be vanilla this year? That instead of double the presents, there was only enough for one? That instead of hugging and screaming at two red-haired, mischievous young men, she was smiling at one, while secretly crying over the other?

George did not care to find out just yet.

Not even bothering to clean up the mess, George swept out of the shop, locking the doors with a sweep of his wand behind him. He walked past all the shops in Diagon Alley in a haze. He paid no attention to where he was going, he just kept walking. He had no desire to stop and eat anywhere he would've gone with Fred. Florian and Fortescues was out of the question, so was The Witches Deli right down the street. Before George knew it, he had gone through The Leaky Cauldron through the brick wall and into muggle London.

Soaking wet by now, George walked into the first muggle food establishment he saw, which ended up being a small, cozy café.

He sat down at the nearest table, armed with a beat up, brown leather chair and a rickety leg. He could care less. Looking over at the menu over the counter, shivering from his encounter with the rain, he tried to discern some of the menu items. Some things were obviously the same, like tuna fish sandwiches and potato soup. But the muggle menu lacked things like cauldron cakes and pumpkin pasties.

"What would you like today sir?"

George looked up to who he guessed was his waitress. She was short, her dirty-blonde hair cut short to where it was about Ron's length in his third year. She looked like a normal muggle, and noticed with an odd sense of disdain the smile on her face.

"I'd like a…" George squinted at the board behind the brass countertop. "Ham and cheese Panini?"

The girl raised one brown eyebrow.

"Is that a question or an order, sir?"

George smirked.

"Make it an order, Miss…?"

He let the sentence hang in the air until she said, "Haven."

"Make it an order than Miss Haven."

The girl promptly went to put the order in, and George let himself get lost in his thoughts. If Fred were here he would have ordered a tuna fish sandwich.

"At least I know the muggles can't possibly screw that up!" George could hear him say. Then Fred would wink and laugh.

George faintly heard the empty chair beside him scrape, and a long arm blur past his vision.

"Fred?"

"I thought I said my name was Haven, sir. Unless you have poor memory on rainy days?"

George let his gaze focus on the young woman, and his eyes narrowed.

"Who said you could sit next to me?"

"I did, with that pathetic look on your face. What's wrong Mister?"

"It's a twin thing, you wouldn't understand,"

"Oh try me, I have a twin brother you know! Older by seventeen minutes!"

George suddenly stared at her intently. He hadn't noticed before, but her eyes were a pleasant blue-green, much like a geranium.

"You have one still though, don't you?" George asked quietly.

There was a moment of heavy silence. George could see her thought process, the flash of recognition behind her face, and she became somber.

"I would tell you I'm sorry, but I know that doesn't help."

"I thought you said 'have', not 'had'."

"He may be alive, but I don't know how much longer."

"Why?"

"Cancer."

George had heard of this disease that muggles were prone to. They so often fell prey to it while the magical world profited from its potions and longevity. Muggles were so… frail.

"I'd say I'm sorry, but I know that doesn't help."

There was another moment of silence, a slightly more comfortable one. Haven got up and made her rounds as George sat and thought. What was the harm in spilling his guts to this girl? It's not like he'd ever see her again. Besides, the only other twins he knew of in the magical world were the Patil's, and he had no intention of talking to them.

A steaming sandwich was thrust in front of him on the table, and with a soft plop, Haven sat beside him again.

"How long?" she asked.

George took a bite of his Panini, chewed slowly, much more methodically than usual. But he had always been a tad slower than Fred. He had thought things threw better than him too.

"Almost a year now," he swallowed. "It's our…my…our birthday today."

"I imagine he'd like it, no matter where he is, to be included in the celebration,"

"That's insensitive,"

"And why's that, carrot-top?"

"My poor mum is having it rough as it is! My dad couldn't look at me in the eye this morning because he'd see my missing… appendage!" He waved to the side of his face where a gaping hole stood in place of an ear. "Then he'd have to come to terms that it was me… and not Fred."

Haven sat there for a moment, contemplating his words. All of a sudden, she reached up and gingerly ran a fingertip around the place his ear used to be. Her touch was slightly rough, callused from work, but George made no move to stop her.

"That might be true," she said softly. "But later today when you go home, he'll look at you straight in the eye, and he'll be so grateful that his other son, who is not Fred, is here with him today."

George snorted, but not derisively.

"You just watch, Mister," Haven told him sternly. "My father did the same. We really do look alike, my brother and I… My dad cries every time my brother gets weaker. But he thanks the Lord everyday that I'm healthy too."

She got up and brushed herself off. George just noticed her clothes. A snug pair of jeans with holes in the knees, and a plain white t-shirt under the café apron.

"Be happy he lived," she said. "You're a twin right? So you know he'll be happier if he's celebrating with you, you'll be able to sense it. If you think about it, a birthday is celebrating the life you have with someone you love, and just because he's dead, doesn't mean he isn't there."

With that she left him alone with his Panini.

He left the café without seeing her face again. He had very quickly and as discreetly as possible transfigured his galleon into muggle money and left it on the table, where he suspected she would later retrieve it.

He wandered aimlessly until he reached Diagon Alley again, pondering her words. If only she knew of the dead. George had wanted Fred to be next to him, alright, as a ghost. He had once confided this to Ron, who shook his head knowingly.

"Trust me mate," he said, his eyes shimmering with light. "That would be cruel. He could never pass on, and neither could you."

George had gotten angry, punched Ron in the face and had ignored him for a good two weeks. When Mrs. Weasley asked about the very nasty bruise coloring Ron's cheekbone, he had said a gnome sprang him in the garden.

He thought even more intently on Haven's words, and had suddenly recalled something Harry had said at the funeral.

"Do you really think the dead ever truly leave us?"

When George apparated to the Burrow that evening to see his mom crying over a half-vanilla, half-strawberry cake, George knew the answer.

"Good gracious mum," George exclaimed cheerfully. "Don't drown the cake, otherwise we couldn't eat it!"

As George approached he saw the writing in icing she had been piping on the top.

"Happy Birthday Fr-"

Old habits died hard.

He smiled and clasped his sobbing mother around the shoulders. Raising his wand, he finished it for her.

"Happy Birthday Fred and George."

Mrs. Weasley looked up at George in confusion, her eyes still red rimmed from crying.

"Fred wouldn't be happy to not be included," George said gently. "And he certainly wouldn't want you drowning the lot of us with your tears wither, would he?"

George began making more frequent trips to that muggle café.

"How'd your birthday go Mister?" Haven asked, sliding a slice of cheesecake in front of him.

"Quite well," he replied, not even glancing at the dessert he would have normally gobbled down. "I think we were both pleased."

Haven nodded with a small smile.

"I'm glad to hear it."

When mid-May approached he brought her a bouquet of geraniums.

"Why Mister, I had no idea you could be so suave," she smiled, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. She knew George better now, that he certainly wasn't all doom and gloom, but quite the trouble-maker. "You didn't put anything, uh, special in these flowers did you?"

There were only two things Haven didn't know about him yet.

"Call me George," he said with a wicked grin. "George Weasley. And I you should never trust me with anything, but I wouldn't put anything in flowers I give to a lady."

"Am I a proper lady, now?"

"Give me your last name and say you'll go to dinner with me."

"Florentine. And I hope you know a good, exotic place. I'm sick of sandwiches."

"If everything goes well, Miss Haven Florentine, I'll eventually take you someplace magical."

She understood him on a completely human level. As a person, she knew him inside and out. Who he was as a twin, a son, a brother, a friend, and individual… and eventually a lover. She made him, simply put, happy. He knew however that that happiness could not continue the way he wanted it too if she didn't meet his family. He had thought about it as he held her one August morning, under the cotton sheets of her queen-sized bed in her flat. He stared at the pale blue ceiling above him, stroking her short hair, It had grown out some since he first met her, just past the nape of her neck.

He had met her own family a month ago. Her parents, her grandpa Bill, and her sick brother Briar. But in turn he had shown her no one. He hadn't even really told his family he was going out with a girl, let alone a muggle.

His father would be thrilled. His mother was a completely different matter. He had kept thinking that it wasn't time, but if now wasn't a good time, it never would be.

Kissing her forehead, he rolled on his side and whispered,

"Wake up sleepy head, it's time to visit the Weasley Burrow."

They approached the entrance to Diagon Alley.

"George, why are you taking me all the way back here?" Haven asked, eyeing him curiously. "I thought you said we were going to meet your family."

George ran a sweaty hand through his fiery ginger hair.

"We are, but Haven, there's something I have to show you first."

Taking out his wand, he tapped the bricks. Haven's eyes widened as the bricks moved, too slowly for George's liking, to reveal the magical world to the girl he loved.

"I'm dreaming," she breathed. "George, I'm dreaming."

"I'm afraid not, sweetheart," he said. Turning her about to face him, her mouth still agape. "Have you ever believed in magic?"

Haven and George stumbled out of the Weasley fireplace, Haven covered in soot and looking a bit green from her first time traveling by floo powder.

"Just wait until you use a portkey!" George joked, laughing as the color ran out of her face (for about the twentieth time that day).

"A what? And I suspect you're going to tell me you ride on broomsticks to?"

"Only when we're playing quidditch,"

"What?"

"George?" Another woman's voice called.

Molly Weasley headed towards them, coming around the corner with her husband Arthur in tow, followed by Ron, Ginny, Harry, and Hermione.

Molly suddenly spotted Haven when she had rushed over to dust the soot off George's face.

"Who's this?" she asked, looking Haven up and down with what Haven thought to be critical eyes. She truly feared any moment now the fiery woman in front of her would whip out a wand and turn her into a rat any minute.

George took a deep breath, put an arm around Haven's shoulders and pulled her close.

"Mum, this is Haven Florentine. She's a muggle, and I'm in love with her."


End file.
